“Well, there’s nothing for you to worry about, so you can stop with the ugly mug.”
“I’m not worried about anything. You’re not mine to worry about,” Kerry said coolly with just a hint of sarcasm.
“Okay. I’m glad you realize that,” Jamison answered patronizingly to point out her unnecessary tone.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
Jamison looked at Tyrian locked in the air-conditioned car with his movie. The sun was high and its heat seemed to be especially cruel on the treeless course.
“Well,” he started and spoke slowly as if he was picking every word before he used it. “Val and I are holding a press conference this week.”
“Another one? You guys are like celebrities,” Kerry shot with a flat smile, though she was in a deep battle about what she knew was coming next. She’d seen the pictures from the hospital like everyone else. They confirmed what she’d already thought. She’d cried anyway. Cried hard into Marcy’s chest. She kept repeating that she was over Jamison, so she didn’t know why this was stinging so badly.
“Yes. Another one.”
“Why?” Kerry asked this thinking maybe he’d say something other than what she knew was to come next.
“She’s pregnant.” Jamison actually felt a little relief letting that out. Maybe he was really hearing it for the first time. Sometimes people keep secrets from others because they really want to keep the secrets from themselves. Maybe this was one of those times.
Kerry leaned against the car. “So, you’re having a baby,” she said. “I knew it.” Kerry looked up and set her eyes on a few clumps of clouds gathering over the parking lot. “So, what’s this? Why are you telling me?”
“Well, I was thinking I should tell you before I told anyone else . . . myself.”
“Why?” Kerry worked hard to see the clouds as she forced so many tears back down.
“Because you’re the mother of my child and I want you to hear it from my mouth. I wanted to tell you earlier, but it didn’t work out that way,” Jamison said.
“You got married without telling me.” Kerry looked at him.
“That was a mistake. I told you. You weren’t supposed to—”
“But I did. So—”
“Kerry, stop trying to . . . hurt me.”
“Trying to hurt you?” Kerry laughed a little. “You married your assistant and now you’re having a baby and you say I’m trying to hurt you?”
“We’re divorced,” Jamison pointed out, though he’d regret it later.
“Exactly, so why are you telling me all of this? You’re the one who told me it was your business and not mine.”
“I want to take Tyrian out for ice cream tomorrow,” Jamison said. “Talk to him. Let him know what’s going on before he hears it from someone else.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Fine.”
“So, I can take him?”
“He’s your son,” Kerry said. “You don’t expect me to tell him, do you?”
The two stood there for a second and listened to the boom from the movie on the iPad vibrate through the car.
Jamison saw how red Kerry’s eyes were getting. Now, his heart was stinging, too. Through all of their pain, their missed sig
nals and misfires, he’d never wanted to see her cry. His best friend had told him it was because Kerry was his first love and his first wife.